Midnight Love || ✔️

11:45 pm

viii | | eight

"HAVE A great long weekend!" Ella's chemistry teacher called as the students filed out of the classroom, backpacks slung over their shoulders, textbooks in their hands. Everyone was chattering excitedly, ready for the long weekend. Ella smiled as she made her way to her locker, dodging people as she went.

Ella was almost done stuffing her bag with textbooks and binders when a presence to her left made her look up. Noah was leaning against the locker beside hers, smiling in a way that made Ella's heart flutter slightly.

Ever since their conversation at the diner, Ella's heart had started betraying her. It beat faster around Noah, butterflies erupted in her stomach, and her brain was more sensitive to anything Noah. She noticed him more often, the way his hair curls and shined even under the unflattering fluorescent lights of the school, his eyes brightening when he talked about something he liked, the crinkles beside his eyes when he grinned, the way his head was thrown back when he laughed—

"What are your plans this weekend?" Noah's voice interrupted her thoughts and she realized with a jolt of embarrassment that she was starting at him with a creepy grin for almost a minute.

Get a hold of yourself, Ella, she told herself, his story changes nothing about yours.

"Oh, you know. Thanksgiving dinner with relatives. Trying to survive my grandmother's endless criticizing," she said, closing and locking her locker.

"Wait, you celebrate Thanksgiving?" he asked. Ella smiled a bit. Here it goes.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" She slung her backpack and they started walking down the hallway and out of the school. The roar of conversation nearly drowned out their words, but they were standing close enough that it didn't matter.

"Well," he looked uncomfortable. Ella just stared, feigning confusion. They exited out into the chilly October afternoon. "It's just that your last name . . . it's, um, Ali."

Was it cruel that Ella was enjoying this? "Yeah, I know. But so what?"

"Well, it's just. Isn't that a Muslim name? Aren't you Muslim?"

Ella rolled her eyes. They walked towards the far parking lot, the one that was not as crowded with teacher cars and parents picking up their kids. "No. It's an Arab name. Arabs are not exclusively Muslim. Yes, the vast majority of Arabs are Muslim, but Christians and Jewish Arabs exist too. Where do you think Jesus came from?"

"Uh, I don't know?" Noah's eyes were wide and she distantly realized that her voice got a bit louder and more passionate.

"From the 'Middle East,'" she said, using air quotes.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Western people think all Arabs are Muslims, and all Muslims are Arabs. But in reality they only make up a small portion of the religion."

"Oh."

Noah was dumbfounded. Ella guessed that that was what happens when someone disproved a thing you believed your whole life.

"So . . . that means that everything they say on the TV—" he said but Ella interrupted him.

"Oh, come on. You're the last person I would expect would actually believe what the biased media says. They don't know anything, just string together the events and make it sound however they want it to sound, or they don't dig deep enough. They don't live in that part of the world and their lazy asses don't take the time to understand the dynamics and make up of life in a place that isn't their precious western society. They assume, all opinions and thoughts and manipulated facts."

Noah was silent for awhile. He didn't speak again until they reached their cars and Ella was worried that she'd blew it. She got too political and scared him and now he won't want to talk to her. Which would be, in a way, a good thing because it's still early enough that nothing has happened between them and—

"I never really thought of it that way," he said. "I know the lies they tell about people like me, but it never occurred to me that it would be like that for other people too."

Ella smiled a bit, relieved that Noah proved her once again wrong. He's not an awful human being.

"It's hard sometimes. But now you know, you can start looking out for it," she said.

Noah nodded, "Yeah." He still looked like someone had unravelled his whole life.

"Are you going to be okay?" Ella asked as she unlocked her door. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Noah shook his head, a breeze blew his hair, ruffling it from its neat position. "No, yeah. I'll be fine. I just have to do some . . . thinking." Then he got into his car and drove away, leaving Ella starting after him.

Maybe she did ruin it after all.